Dear, it is the stars' imperium
that makes us paupers, all
that glittering multitude
turning till Kingdom Come
in their grand gradual
galliard, robed in eternity.
What have we
but a few rags — a day, a night
thrown down — of all that dazzle and darkness;
a Summer, a Fall,

a motley of seasons. . . . Dressed
so, we may play the fool
for a Time that meanwhile grinds
our faces in the dust. . . .
Oh you'd stay virginal
and fugitive as the Pleiades
if things were otherwise,
and I'd be taller than Orion. But —
we are born too far from favor,
from where identical

August comes on — candescent night
millraced with foam-white stars,
those tireless dancers
shod in meteorite.
Our twenty ridiculous years
pass while the same instant
of eternity's on the Firmament,
the light's in mid-leap from Arcturus. . . . Look,
old clown, a joke for Coma Berenice
are these greyed hairs of ours.











By permission of the author.